The Van Meter Monster Part 2

Astonishing Legends

Scott Philbrook

History, Society & Culture

4.6 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2023

⏱️ 176 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the second part of our series on the mysterious visitor to Van Meter, Iowa, it’s time to wonder how so many credible people could see a creature so incredible and what that creature could be. An extant pterosaur, your run-of-the-mill cryptid, a Keel-like “uttraterrestrial,” something like a tulpa or an egregore, or simply a transdimensional interloper from the sacred and mystical bowels of the earth? Does a hoax that a whole town would have to be in on even make sense? Could the gestalt be a little from all of these things? We may never know precisely what the Van Meter Monster was, but we can learn how something clinically described as an unusual sensory experience affects the people who see it. Something else we can bet on is that, like it or not, we must share our reality with the surreal, and as rare as it is, people will continue to see the impossible.

Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Listen to the astonishing junk drawer exclusively at patreon.com slash astonishing legends.
0:05.4	I don't think people are taking time off work to hit this.
0:09.4	You sent me some video of you dancing around the kitchen.
0:12.1	It was amazing.
0:13.3	Using any white, drunk college kid can dance to.
0:16.2	I'll just stick with the AI stuff.
0:17.6	That's Rowan said that, not me.
0:19.2	My math teacher, like, she doesn't explain it that
0:22.9	well. Well, that's the hallucination, right? That's like AI hallucination. We have lives too.
0:28.5	Mother Shifton's cave. Rich Adam is coming. Jim Harold is coming. I'm doing a lot of laughing,
0:35.4	is it? Hmm? Right.
0:40.0	Astonishing legends would like to thank Mint Mobile, The Farmer's Dog, Squarespace, SimplySafe,
0:45.7	our contributors at patreon.com and you are listeners for making tonight's show possible.
0:52.1	On our last episode, we transported you back to the eerie streets of Van Meter, Iowa,
0:57.8	for a week of late-night terror in October of 1903 to share the spine-chilling tale of the Van Meter
1:03.9	monster and its haunting visit to that once tranquil town. One might think that Van Meter is a lot
1:09.7	different today, 120 years later, and in some
1:13.2	ways it is. But remarkably, Van Meter's population remains relatively unchanged, hovering
1:19.6	at around a thousand souls. This legend defies all rational explanation, leaving the term
1:26.4	high strangeness sounding feeble and inadequate for
1:30.0	it by comparison. Skeptics may scoff at the fantastical descriptions, and who can blame them?
1:36.6	Even the most ardent believers find themselves grappling with the mind-boggling details.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scott Philbrook, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scott Philbrook and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.